My stats are through the roof for the last couple of days thanks to a post on Metafilter. Good to have you. But, I don’t want to pay $5 to register, just to answer the negative comments there. So, I’ll do it here!
For the record, my site may not predate Lileks‘, but it came about at the same time and before I knew of his. It is not a copy. We both started on AOL, and have similar interests. I discovered his site searching for more images by Art Frahm, and have been in contact ever since. My site started in the mid-90s.
Secondly, unlike Lileks’, I have not gone back and reformatted my pages. They are largely just as they were when they were created. I don’t have the large amounts of free time he has, and I would not spend it making my site look all pretty if I did. I am more interested in adding content.
Thirdly, I am not a professional writer, and I would not compare my snarky commenting to his. He is much better at it. I just say the first thing that comes to mind. It’s not like I am writing books for publishing or anything! Plus, again, that was all written 10 years ago, for the most part.
Fourth, It’s my site, I can be as snarky as I wanna be. That’s the title of my new rap CD too. “Snarky As I Wanna Be.”
When you pick up my book for $20, then you can be critical as all get out. Don’t be too hard on the free stuff. I bruise. Well, not easily, but, still.
Yeah, yeah, it’s the internet. Everybody has a voice and they are just commenting and all that stuff. I just think people don’t have the right context for what they are looking at is all. If I did all this stuff this year, it would look very differently and maybe the writing would be better, or not…
Thanks and enjoy.
Now you know why I don’t waste my time posting anything at MetaFilter any longer. No matter how much effort I would put into crafting a post, some asshat would pop up in the comments and complain about some aspect of it. It’s like being at a convention of armchair quarterbacks.
It certainly appears that some of them feel “empowered” by the notion that, having paid their $5, they are justified in spewing negativity. This may, of course, having little or nothing to do with the subject matter of their dietribe, but rather the sudden realization that they could have gone to Slashdot (or any number of other communities) and done the same thing for free…
Oddly enough, I was just reading that part of the site the other day and the “Crisco – It’s Digestible” ad was the one that stuck out in my mind.
Nuts! to the nuts in the peanut gallery. You got some good publicity.